


Unexpected Passenger

by Black_Knight



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2017-12-27 10:13:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Knight/pseuds/Black_Knight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma can’t help but stare across the Jolly Roger.  </p><p>She had had a lot of time on the way to Neverland to imagine scenarios for the return journey home.  She’d thought she’d dreamed up every conceivable one that didn’t involve Henry not being onboard.  Henry not being safe and well was simply unthinkable; everything else was negotiable.</p><p>(Takes place after the S2 finale.  Eventual Swan Queen.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What Happens in Neverland...

Emma can’t help but stare across the Jolly Roger. 

She had had a lot of time on the way to Neverland to imagine scenarios for the return journey home. She’d thought she’d dreamed up every conceivable one that didn’t involve Henry not being onboard. Henry not being safe and well was simply unthinkable; everything else was negotiable.

She’d imagined the deaths of everyone on the rescue mission, including herself, separately or in combinations. Henry was the only constant, and she’d once had an image of him sailing the Jolly Roger all alone. But safe. (She and Regina had even discussed this, and the will Regina had subsequently written is still securely stowed in the captain’s quarters.)

She hadn’t only thought about potential deaths. Until Hook had assured her otherwise, she’d thought about the possibility that Neverland ran on different time and they’d return after a month to find that Storybrooke was fifty years into the future. She’d thought about the possibility that the Jolly Roger would become lost in the fabric of the universe, fated to wander between worlds for all time trying to make it back to Storybrooke. (Or, more realistically, until the crew turned on each other, because there was only so long that you could expect the Evil Queen, Snow White, Rumplestiltskin and Captain Hook to co-exist in such small quarters before they took a page out of _Reservoir Dogs_.)

And she’d thought about people who might join them. Peter Pan had been an obvious candidate, either in chains or as a reformed villain. The latter hadn’t been that unlikely considering that half the rescue crew headed to Neverland consisted of villains (all of whom were varying and highly questionable degrees of reformed).

Peter Pan hadn’t panned out. The Lost Boys, however, had. They’re all over the deck right now, laughing and bouncing and getting in everyone’s way. And okay, Emma hadn’t exactly pictured them all there, but she had thought - hoped - that maybe Henry would bond with one of them, who would become his protector, and so of course they’d take Henry’s new friend back with them. So the presence of the Lost Boys isn’t unexpected. (Although Emma hadn’t envisioned just how that would come to pass.)

This bizarre sight, though, never in a million years.

Regina is sitting on the other side of the ship, sandwiched between her companions and breathtakingly radiant with joy. Her right arm is wrapped around her son’s shoulders, and Henry gazes up at her with a more adoring look than Emma’s ever seen him give anyone. And on her other side, she leans against the chest of...

Daniel.


	2. ...Doesn't Stay in Neverland (Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up splitting my planned second chapter in two parts due to length. So the mystery of the "unexpected passenger" will be in the second part.

### Part I: Journey to Neverland

When the Jolly Roger comes out the portal in Neverland, Hook quickly ascertains that it’s about a week’s sail to the actual island. Hearing that makes Emma crazy, but Hook and Gold and, most shockingly, Regina, are all okay with this. Both Gold and Regina turn down her requests for them to summon powerful winds, and Emma’s yelling at them - Regina, mostly, because Gold is one thing but Regina is Henry’s other mother - when Mary Margaret of all people speaks up.

“Emma, I don’t like it either. But when the three people who know whom and what we’ll be facing don’t think it’s a good idea to rush in, that should tell you something.”

So their first order of business is a briefing on Peter Pan. He started out relatively benign, according to Gold, something of a trickster, but not malicious. But then he died from a pirate’s bullet (Hook denies responsibility), was only saved by a fairy, and turned darker.

“Wait, Tinkerbell?” Emma asks, and Gold nods.

“I thought she was the one who got her life restored.”

“A corruption of the truth, and a very useful one for Peter Pan, as it means virtually no one knows that Tinkerbell is one of his two main bulwarks against death.”

“But you know,” Emma says, and notices Regina shoot Gold a dark look. 

Gold, however, does not elaborate. “Peter Pan’s other bulwark against death are the Lost Boys. He looks for boys who he knows or suspects might have magic, and takes them.”

“It’s why I never tried to pass Henry off as my biological son,” Regina says. “I knew Peter Pan would surely be interested in any son of mine. But he had no reason to think anything of a boy born to human parents in a land without magic.”

“So he wasn’t interested until it came out that I could do magic? Shit. Wait, does that mean Henry can do magic?”

“It’s unlikely,” Gold says. “There is no magic in your bloodline, unlike Regina, who inherited magic from her mother’s side.”

“Yeah, but what about Neal’s side?”

Hook laughs derisively. “I met Rumplestiltskin when he was nothing. His magic comes from having been transformed into the Dark One. It isn’t in his blood.”

Gold’s look is cold, but Emma has other concerns. She addresses Regina with, “So why didn’t you say anything once you found out I could do magic?”

Regina’s tone is quite irritable as she replies, “You might recall that I was a little busy during that time. Second, once I learned that you’d seen something I knew wasn’t true, I assumed your supposed ‘magic’ was actually an implanted vision by someone else.”

“Right,” Emma says hastily. She’s in no mood to tackle the first point of Regina’s, as that would just lead to a rehashing of the entire sorry chain of events that’d begun with Regina being framed for murder and ended with Regina’s mother being murdered by Mary Margaret at Regina’s hand, and that will surely rip apart this unlikely group of six. And the second point does make sense, because it hadn’t even occurred to Regina in the mines that maybe Emma’s magic could help.

Gold picks the thread back up. “Peter Pan uses the magic of the Lost Boys to bolster his own powers to levels that, by now, will be almost unimaginable.”

“How many Lost Boys are there?” Mary Margaret asks.

“I don’t know exactly. But the kidnapping of the first boy from our kingdom occurred the year I married your father,” Regina replies, and Mary Margaret looks ill. “So the number should be in the dozens.”

“What about the boys who turn out not to have magic?” Emma asks pointedly.

“He can still feed off their life force, at least until it’s all used up. A person’s life force doesn’t replenish itself the way magic does.”

“And we’re _not_ sailing there as fast as we can?”

“We can, if you want this to be a suicide mission,” Gold replies. “We need this time to devise a plan and make preparations. It will certainly take more than a week to fully drain Henry.”

That cold-blooded assessment horrifies Emma, but she sees Regina close her eyes, and her obvious pain convinces Emma that Gold is right.

After that, they decide to figure out the sleeping arrangements. There are only three places to sleep - the captain’s quarters, a small private room, and the crew’s quarters - and the problem is that there’s a lot of mistrust in this dubious alliance. Initially they settle on Regina and Gold taking the two private quarters, because they can use magic to secure their rooms, while the rest share the crew’s quarters, where safety is in numbers.

That plan goes up in smoke when Gold retires for the evening, only to quickly return above deck to ask Regina if she’s tried using magic in this land yet. Regina begins to summon her magic and immediately notices that there’s something different, _wrong_ with it. Since neither of them can cast a protection spell on their rooms, they all end up sleeping together in the crew’s quarters (except for Hook, who takes watch), and nobody sleeps well.

Bad moods reign the next morning. Emma, David and Mary Margaret pour their irritation into their practice with swords, while Hook gets some sleep and Regina and Gold try to figure out what’s going on with their magic. Nothing works, and they’re edgy as a result. They can’t explain what’s happening, apart from vague and unhelpful statements that Neverland’s magic is very different.

It’s Emma who suggests that afternoon that she try her own magic out. Regina is adamantly against this, but Gold is interested. Which appalls Regina. Hook comes up on deck as the three of them are arguing about it. When Regina shrewdly argues that it’s a danger to the ship to allow an untrained and inexperienced magic user to try to cast a spell, Hook sides with her, and as the captain of the Jolly Roger, his authority rules.

They all sleep poorly again that night, excepting Hook who’s on watch. But for Emma, she’s awake less because she’s worried about someone trying to murder her in her sleep than because she’s become obsessed with the thought that Henry’s whole family will die on this rescue mission and he’ll have to return to Storybrooke without any of them.

It upsets her enough that she talks to Regina about it the following day. And so at dinner, Regina hands Hook a piece of paper in front of everyone.

“This is my will. Please store it safely in the captain’s quarters, in case anything happens to me.”

“A will? But Henry’s your next of kin anyway,” Mary Margaret says.

Regina barely refrains from rolling her eyes (Emma has to admit Regina’s _really_ trying with Mary Margaret) before she answers, “It’s about what happens to Henry should I die.”

Emma quickly tells everyone, “We discussed this together,” but David barely seems to hear her.

“Well, why you?”

There’s a distinct edge to Regina’s voice as she replies, “I am Henry’s legal mother. That means I am the one who decides who he goes to if I am no longer here.”

Emma repeats to the table, “We discussed this together.” Everyone seems to hear her this time, and she adds, “She has my approval.”

“Not that I need it,” Regina snaps.

“Well, let’s hear it,” Mary Margaret says.

“In the event of my death, custody of Henry goes to Emma.”

“Well, I can’t argue with that,” David says.

“Should Emma and I both die, custody of Henry goes to his maternal grandparents on Emma’s side.” Regina can’t quite bring herself to specify the Charmings by name, as making this concession already takes everything she has.

“Wow,” Snow can’t help but respond.

“I told you that we discussed it and I approve,” Emma says pointedly.

“Should all four of us die on this trip-”

“Very cheery, love,” Hook interjects.

“If I may finish.”

“Sorry. Go ahead.”

“Then my son’s legal guardian upon his return to Storybrooke will be Archie Hopper.”

Mary Margaret and David make surprised noises of approval. Emma says again, “I told you.”

“You seem to have forgotten a family member, Regina,” Gold says silkily.

Regina turns a cold look on Gold. “I didn’t forget.”

“I’m his grandfather.”

“You will _never_ have my son. He’s not a replacement for yours,” Regina snaps.

“You prefer the cricket?”

“Henry loves him. And Archie is a good man who would be a good father.”

“I’m sure the fact he’s the one person who doesn’t hate you has nothing to do with it.”

“Don’t be so smug. The only one who loves _you_ is Belle, and she’ll come to her senses eventually.”

The rest of dinner is eaten in silence. But Regina and Gold’s testiness with each other carries over to the next day, exploding when the subject of Emma using her magic is brought up again. Regina and Gold still have not been able to figure out their own magic, but she remains completely against the idea of Emma experimenting. However, David and Mary Margaret, nervous at the idea of being in Neverland without any magic at all, are now leaning towards allowing Emma to try. 

Hook, faced with four votes in favor, reluctantly agrees. But he does put conditions on his approval: It must be a very small spell, and have absolutely nothing to do with fire or blowing anything up.

Gold suggests that she merely try to move an object a short distance across the deck, and they settle on Mary Margaret’s cap, as it won’t hurt if Emma hits anyone with it. Emma concentrates, but nothing happens. She tries again, and this time she feels magic flowing through her - but she also feels what Regina and Gold have been saying, that this magic is different somehow than in Storybrooke - and she flings out a hand. But instead of the cap moving, the ship’s mainsail instead manifests three long, gaping tears in its fabric.

There’s stunned silence on the deck. Then Regina snarls, “Perfect, Ms. Swan.”

Hook says, “I have a spare mainsail below deck. But that’s it for your trying magic. I don’t have a spare ship.” David and Mary Margaret nod in unison.

“That’s not entirely fair,” Gold says. “Yes, her magic is also clearly not of this land. But she’s untrained-” 

“I’ve been pointing that out!” Regina interjects.

“-and perhaps with training, there would be a different result. I would be willing.”

Emma looks at Gold with hope, but then Regina takes her arm and drags her away. “Don’t do it.”

“Are you offering?”

“No.” Emma starts to move away, but Regina grabs her elbow again. “If you never listen to anything else I say, listen to this. Do not let him train you. Ever.”

Emma’s first reaction is to argue, but something about the force of Regina’s sincerity impresses her. So she nods, and Regina releases her arm with a sigh.

Emma worries that on a ship where uneasy truces are reigning, Regina and Gold’s recent clashes are going to upset the delicate balance. But later that day, she sees Regina and Gold conferring animatedly but peacefully with Hook, up by the steering wheel. Emma can’t hear their conversation, but the next morning, she gets a clue when Hook announces a shooting competition between the three people experienced with guns - himself, Emma and David - and sets up targets.

Mary Margaret is below deck catching up on sleep, but Regina and Gold are watching intently from across the ship. Hook shoots first and does quite well. David follows, and he’s a good shot, but he doesn’t quite match Hook. And then it’s Emma’s turn. As she steps up, she notices that Hook has joined Regina and Gold, while David remains close to her. But she puts that out of her mind and thinks of Henry. A calm determination comes over her, and every single shot of hers lands dead center in each target.

David congratulates her, but Emma sneaks a look over his shoulder at the trio of villains. Gold’s face is unreadable, but Regina doesn’t look happy, and Hook looks skeptical. Hook quietly says something to Regina, and she only shakes her head and walks away. But Gold catches her, and Hook joins them, and they have a short but heated conversation. Emma begins to join them, and they immediately break up when they see her coming.

The next day, Regina, Gold and Hook are still talking privately. It’s obvious to Emma now that these are war councils to which she and her parents are not invited. She knows it’s probably for the same reason as why they were fine with a week’s journey to the island in the first place - because they are the ones with prior knowledge of Peter Pan and Neverland - but it pisses her off.

Emma knows that Gold is Gold, and Hook will go into his lecherous act as a deflection, so it’s Regina she catches alone below deck for a little conversation about how she’s being shut out of everything important in this rescue mission to save her son.

“You told me not to let Gold train me in magic, and I actually did what you said. But you won’t train me either.”

“I don’t have time to train you. There are only a couple of days left, and I have to get my own magic working properly.”

“So you can be the hero, right? Save Henry all on your own?”

Regina looks curiously at Emma. “Is that what _you_ want? To be the hero?” Off Emma’s slightly caught look (okay, she does kind of want to be her kid’s savior), she continues, “Let me be clear. This rescue mission will require every one of us if it is to be successful. There will be no lone hero. That is not even a possibility in play.”

“But you’re not using everything I can bring to the table. I have magic.”

“We don’t need your magic, Ms. Swan. We need your shooting skills.”

Emma begins to argue, but Regina cuts her off. “That’s not an insult. You are the best shooter here. By the same token, I’m not spending time training with a sword or bow because we don’t need my novice attempts at manual combat. We need my magic.”

“But Gold is in the same boat as you - his magic’s not working either, and he’s not training with a sword, but he’s willing to spend the time to work with me.”

“That’s because we need him to deal with Tinkerbell, and he already knows how to do that.”

“Why is that?”

Regina smiles grimly. “They have a history. So do we, but that’s why Tinkerbell would never listen to me. She knows I despise her.”

That brings Emma up short. “What are you talking about?”

“When I was a child, Tinkerbell was the fairy godmother assigned to my area of the kingdom. She-” Regina breaks off and shakes her head. “She should have helped me. But Rumplestiltskin intervened. He introduced Tinkerbell to Peter Pan, and she fell in love with him and abandoned her responsibilities. So when I needed my fairy godmother, she wasn’t there.”

Emma doesn’t quite know what to do with that, so she forges on. “Okay, so Gold is to deal with Tinkerbell. What are everyone else’s jobs? Why did we need to have that shooting competition?”

Regina begins ticking fingers off. “We need one person to fight Peter Pan, one person to fight the Lost Boys, two people to fight the rest of his forces, and one person to stay with the Jolly Roger so that we can make our getaway afterwards. Since David and Hook lost the shooting competition, it makes sense for Hook to be the one to stay with the ship and for David to fight with Mary Margaret, as they’re an experienced team. You, as the best shooter, are needed to deal with the Lost Boys. That leaves me to take out Peter Pan, and I need magic for that.”

“Oh, how convenient. You. You sure you don’t want to be the hero?”

Regina laughs bitterly. “You know, it’s ironic. You’re the only person on this ship who isn’t a stone-cold killer. Hook is a pirate. Your parents killed plenty of people during their rebellions. Rumplestiltskin and I have more deaths than we can count on our ledgers. But you are the one who will have to kill the Lost Boys.”

“So Peter Pan can’t feed off their magic?” At Regina’s nod, Emma continues, “Well, I can do that.”

“Can you? Hook doesn’t think so. I think you can, for Henry, but you don’t realize the toll. It’s the one line I’ve never crossed.” At Emma’s questioning look, Regina specifies, “Killing children.”

Emma begins to blanch, but Regina continues mercilessly. “They are lost and dark and dangerous, but they are also boys. Some will look very much like Henry. All of them had parents, and most of those parents loved them just as we do Henry. And you are going to have to shoot all of the Lost Boys so that I can take down Peter Pan.”

They stare at each other. Regina finishes, “So, you do get to be the hero. Killing Peter Pan is the easy part.”


	3. ...Doesn't Stay in Neverland (Part II)

### Part II: Neverland

Emma is watching the sunset alone, mulling over the plan for Neverland that she had been told a few hours earlier, when Regina comes to stand next to her. For a little time, they simply watch the sun dip lower in the sky.

Finally Regina, still staring straight ahead, says, “We can switch the roles that you and Hook are to play.”

“I’m the best shot.”

“Yes, but Hook is an excellent marksman in his own right. More importantly, he can do it.”

“He doesn’t mind killing children?” Emma says with a touch of bitterness.

“Yes, he minds. No one on this ship has done that before, except maybe Rumplestiltskin, but he’s needed to eliminate Tinkerbell.”

“So I stay on the ship while everyone else goes to the island to rescue my son? Forget it.”

“It is not an unimportant or easy task. Some of Peter Pan’s minions will undoubtedly try to take the ship, and they must be held off. By one person.”

“I get that, okay? But I’m not staying behind. Hook can look after his ship.”

Regina turns and looks at Emma for the first time. “We can’t switch you and David. We need two people to fight those of Peter Pan’s who aren’t the Lost Boys or trying to storm the Jolly Roger, because they will comprise the bulk of his forces. David participated in the shooting competition, but how he placed was irrelevant. There was never any question that he and your mother would have this particular task. They fought together many times during the wars, and they also have a very real innate connection, for all that I find it nauseating and annoying. Considering how outnumbered they will be by the warriors and by the man-eating crocodiles that Peter Pan can conjure at will, the two who fight will need every bit of advantage possible.”

“So we stick with the original plan. I take on the Lost Boys.” 

“You can’t tell your parents. Or David will insist on trading places with you.” 

Emma finally looks at Regina. “You know, I saw the skepticism on Hook’s face after that competition, but _you_ looked unhappy. You don’t want me to do this either.”

The sun has slipped below the horizon, but there’s still enough light that Emma can see Regina pretty clearly. It doesn’t really help, as Regina has turned back to the ocean, and her face in profile is a mask. But she replies, “Hook may not relish the prospect of killing children any more than you do, but I think he’s better equipped psychologically to deal with it afterwards.”

“Careful,” Emma quips. “I might think you actually care about me.”

Regina’s head jerks around. “I care about _Henry_. Hook isn’t the one who’s going to be raising him after this is over.”

Emma really snaps to attention at that, and turns her body fully towards Regina. “Wait. Why are you talking like this is another suicide mission for you? You told me that killing Peter Pan is the easy part.”

Regina turns fully as well, and they face off. “It is. The part where I must hold my own against Peter Pan in a magical duel, and keep him engaged so that he doesn’t start taking out the other members of our team, when my own magic is malfunctioning? _That’s_ a little harder.”

Emma gulps. “That sounds...impossible.”

“It’s not as if there’s any choice. Gold is the other one besides your parents who can’t be switched. So I need to know, can you do this? Because if not, then you need to put your pride aside and stay on the ship.”

“You already said that you think I can, for Henry. Now you’re doubting me?”

“Oh, I think you can kill the Lost Boys. My question is whether you can do it quickly, without hesitation. _Everybody_ , except Gold, will be depending on you. My magic isn’t working, and Hook and your parents will be severely outnumbered, so Peter Pan’s victory is simply a matter of time.”

“Gold-”

“He’s not going to be able to just zap that fairy out of the air like the mosquito she is. It will take some time for him to talk to her, and either make a deal or get her to come close enough that he can kill her with his hands. So, we can’t count on him arriving in time to reinforce us. Which brings me back to my point: We won’t have time for you to wring your hands and work yourself up to shooting each Lost Boy.”

Emma squares her jaw. “Got it.”

Their heavily shadowed faces are just inches away from each other. Regina’s look is so intense that Emma feels like her insides are actually being sucked out by the power of that stare, but she stands her ground without flinching. After a moment, Regina walks away. Emma lets out her breath very slowly, so that Regina won’t be able to hear it, and manages not to collapse onto the deck. It’s the only time Regina’s ever actually scared her. But in a way, she’s grateful - the Lost Boys can’t be as bad, and she also cannot imagine this Regina falling to Peter Pan, however problematic her magic.

The next day, they see dark clouds and dark seas in the far distance. When that afternoon they pass from the sunlight into the gloom and look through the telescope, they finally sight the island of Neverland. Even though it’s still day, the island looks as if it’s actually nighttime.

Regina and Gold have been standing together talking since Neverland was spotted, and Emma’s determined not to be left out of the loop this time. “What’s going on?”

Gold replies, “Neverland looks very different from the last time I was here. It was already turning into less than a cheery place, but now it seems as if eternal night has fallen.”

“So you were here after Peter Pan went bad?”

Regina turns to her. “He brought Peter Pan a boy. One of his deals.”

Gold taps his fingers together. “Yes, the boy had great magic, and Peter Pan had an item I very much wanted.”

Emma feels sick.

Regina says, “Now that we can see the island, we have a much clearer idea of what’s happening with our magic.”

“Now _that’s_ good news. What is it?”

“Neverland’s magic is very different from ours,” Gold responds.

Emma stares. “Are you kidding me? You’ve been saying that for six days now.”

“But that’s not the only issue,” Regina says. “There’s also a taint. Something or someone - Peter Pan, almost certainly - has twisted magic here, so that even if we figure out how the natural magic of Neverland works, it _still_ won’t work. The taint corrupts it.”

“So this is actually really bad news.” Emma slumps against the ship’s rail.

“It’s always best to have a full picture of the situation,” Gold says.

“The full picture is that we’re screwed? Yeah, I’m really glad I know that.”

“Actually, we now have a way forward, although harder for Regina than for me.”

Emma perks up. “How’s that?”

“Unlike Rumplestiltskin, my magic is entirely based on drawing from my emotions, especially my anger and my hate. And I’ve been _consumed_ with anger and hate this whole voyage, thinking about what I want to do to Peter Pan.”

“I totally relate to that,” Emma comments.

“But the more I feel, the more that taint makes whatever I try to cast backfire. But if I remain perfectly emotionless, it seems as if that taint can’t quite get its hooks into my spells.”

“But if your magic is based on your emotions-”

“It means I’m very underpowered,” Regina acknowledges. “But at least I can cast _something_ and have a real chance of it actually working correctly. It’s better than unleashing my full magic all over the place and hoping that whatever happens works in our favor.”

“Like when I tried to teleport that cap and ripped the sail.” Regina nods. Emma turns to Gold. “And this works for you too?”

“My own problem has been that my mind is always busy turning over possibilities, variables, potential timelines. Where Regina has to focus on keeping her heart empty of all feeling, I must keep my mind clear of anything but the one spell I want to cast. But yes, I can work magic with confidence now.”

Emma grins, enjoying the feeling of hope that’s been so absent from her lately. Gold actually smiles as well. Regina is considerably more muted, but at least doesn’t look unhappy.

After a dinner in which they go over the plans one last time (continuing to keep David and Mary Margaret in the dark about Emma’s task to kill the Lost Boys), Emma notices Regina has disappeared. After searching nearly the entire ship, she finally finds her in the captain’s quarters, her hand over a document on the desk.

“What are you doing?” Emma comes closer, and sees that the document is the will that Regina had written days before.

Regina looks up at her. “Casting a small protection spell. It’s good practice, and this needs protection anyway.”

“You make any changes?” Emma asks suspiciously. Regina rolls her eyes and holds up the will to Emma, and she can see that it’s all still the same.

Regina returns the will to the desk drawer it had been in. “I was worried about Gold making changes. Or destroying it altogether. If that were to happen, it would simply be Hook’s word that Henry is to go to you.”

“But that’s what would happen anyway. After me, sure, you have to lay out who gets him-”

“No. What part of ‘I am the legal mother’ do you not understand? You have no rights. Henry has been living with you only because I allowed it. You are nothing in the eyes of the law, and neither are your parents. Henry’s next of kin, after me, is Gold.”

“Gold?”

“Mr. Cassidy never consented to the adoption, never signed away his parental rights. So in the wake of his death and mine, his father would have a good claim to Henry.”

“Gold doesn’t want-” Regina raises an eyebrow, and Emma remembers having to owe him a favor so he wouldn’t take Ashley’s baby. “Okay, that was stupid. But Gold and I get along okay, and he knows Henry would want to live with me.” 

“I don’t actually disagree. But you may antagonize him.”

“You mean if he pulls illegal crap and I have to crack down on him?”

“That too. But I was thinking more of your keeping a promise that you’ll make to me.”

“I’m making a promise to you?”

“Yes. I want you to promise me tonight that you will never allow Gold near Henry.”

Emma groans. “Haven’t you learned _anything_ about going all scorched earth? Yeah, that’ll definitely antagonize him. It’d be better if I let him see the kid.”

“Sometimes going scorched earth is necessary,” Regina snaps. “I don’t want Gold around my son.”

“He’s his grandfather.”

“You’re using that argument? Really? After you didn’t inform Mr. Cassidy that he had a son, or Henry that he had a father out there, and kept me away from my son?”

“I had reasons,” Emma says heatedly. “Like Neal leaving me to rot in jail, or you being the fucking Evil Queen-”

“And you’re the only one who’s allowed to have reasons?”

That slows Emma down a little. Regina takes a breath and reiterates, “I don’t want Gold anywhere near my son. If you need a reason, it’s because he’s the _Dark One_. And yes, I am the Evil Queen, but I’ve also been Henry's mother for ten years. There isn’t a prior relationship between Henry and Gold, and you aren’t to allow them to develop one just because his idiot son is the one who got you pregnant.”

This is getting to be too much for Emma - she can feel how Regina’s resentment has the weight of a long history behind it, one she doesn’t want to hear about tonight especially, just before she has to set off tomorrow with Gold and Regina to save her son. So she tries for a lighter tone. “You already used the ‘listen to me about one thing’ card when you said I shouldn’t let Gold train me.”

“And you still shouldn’t. Fine. Consider this promise my dying wish. Does that have enough weight for you?”

They stare at each other. Emma says weakly, “It does, but- he’s _helping_ , Regina. He’s helping us save Henry.”

“And I’m glad for that, because we need him. It doesn’t change things. You can’t let him near Henry.”

Emma struggles for a moment, because it still feels kind of shitty to her to use the fact that Gold is Henry’s grandfather to her benefit and then discard him when he’s no longer needed. Then Regina says in the softest, weariest voice she’s ever heard her use, “Whatever else you can say about me, I did not raise my son to be _evil_.”

“He’s a good kid,” Emma acknowledges. And that decides her. “Okay. I promise.”

“Thank you.”

“But you know, you’re not gonna die tomorrow anyway.” Emma says it not because she’s trying to get out of her promise, but because Regina’s apparent certainty that her death is near is really bringing her down. She’s already spent the whole trip imagining them all dying, among other things, and she needs a different attitude tonight. “You said it earlier today - you can work magic now.”

“Yes, which will allow me to last longer with Peter Pan. But again, I will be extremely underpowered, going up against someone who has great magic of his own and is having it exponentially increased by feeding off dozens of others.”

“It’s not _impossible_ anymore.”

“No, it’s entirely doable, in the sense that now we should be able to hold him off long enough for Gold to arrive.”

“We?”

“Yes. I have something for you.” Regina gestures to the bed, and Emma sees a sword lying on it.

Emma crosses over to the bed and picks up the sword. It’s a nice enough sword, but nothing special. She looks at Regina questioningly.

“I enchanted this sword. It’s not a very powerful spell, because of my limitations, but the sword will be able to pierce a certain amount of magical protection. If enough of the Lost Boys are dead, and Tinkerbell’s protection is gone, then you can incapacitate Peter Pan for a little while by stabbing him with this. That will buy you the time you need, for Gold to arrive and for you to kill the remaining Lost Boys. Once Gold is there, he can engage Peter Pan in a duel just as I did, and he can finish him off once he’s weak enough.”

Emma is silent. Regina adds, “Don’t try shooting him. That won’t work.”

“Thanks for this.” Regina sits down on the bed, looking exhausted, and Emma gazes down at her, the sword in her hands. “But it’s not going to be necessary. I’ll make that promise too right now. I am going to be _so_ fast. I’m not going to let any of us die.”

Regina smiles, but there isn’t any faith in her eyes. “Whatever you say, dear.”

Emma sits down next to Regina, and places the sword carefully on her other side. “Will you-”

“Yes?”

“Will you tell me about how you _did_ raise Henry?”

Regina looks at Emma. “Where do you want me to start?”

“At the beginning.”

Regina chuckles ruefully. “Of course. Well. Once upon a time...”

Regina does start at the beginning, when Henry was placed in her arms, and she talks for two hours without stopping. Story after story, from every year and stage of Henry’s life. And as Emma listens, it really comes home to her - and not because Regina’s doing it on purpose, trying to prove a point, it’s just apparent from her stories - what an involved and engaged mother Regina always was. She knows and remembers too many details to have been anything else, and the thought and care she put into Henry’s upbringing is clear. Certainly some of it isn’t how Emma would have chosen - Regina being overly strict, by Emma’s lights, is clearly not a recent thing - but the love shines through.

Regina reaches Henry’s tenth birthday and admits, “This was when things started to go really wrong,” and Emma truly believes her. Again, she just doesn’t sound like someone who’s insisting too much, looking to convince Emma. She’s not sure Regina is even talking to her at all. It feels more like Regina’s reliving the last ten years for herself, a kind of a final accounting before her death the next day. (Emma pushes that thought away, hard. She _will_ complete her task before Peter Pan can defeat Regina.)

“Henry never had any friends, even though there was no reason he shouldn’t. He was always active, interested in activities, not standoffish. And the problem wasn’t me.”

Emma does have to challenge that one. “You sure? You are kind of intimidating.”

“I was the _Mayor_ , not the Evil Queen. And yes, some of the parents were leery, but any number of the others wanted to curry favor with me. Henry was a good boy, with a good house in a good neighborhood, his mother the mayor - there were no red flags indicating it wasn’t safe. In the early years, I invited children over a number of times and was never refused, and Henry was invited by other parents to visit their houses.”

“What was it, then?”

“It was the children. The other parents and I did all the inviting. Henry never asked anyone over, and the other kids didn’t ask him over.”

“So, you intimidated the kids.” Regina looks at her wearily. “I’m sorry but, you’re intimidating.”

“When I want to be. Has Henry ever struck you as being intimidated by me?” 

“Not really,” Emma has to admit. An intimidated kid would never talk back to or treat Regina the way she’s seen Henry do. For all that he used to insist to Emma that Regina didn’t love him, he’s never been fearful that his mother would hurt him. Emma knows what that looks like well enough from her time in certain foster homes.

“I’ve always liked children. I wanted to adopt even before Henry.”

“You did?”

“Yes, there were some older children.” And Emma likes her for that, because she heard so many times growing up that she’d never be adopted because she was too old. She was told that for the first time at age four.

But - “You ended up with a baby.”

“It wasn’t a requirement of mine. Gold made the arrangements, and he said he found it easiest to get a baby. Of course, now I know that other things were at work.”

“Right.” Emma doesn’t want to get Regina started on Gold again. The last couple of hours have actually been nice, and exactly what she needs tonight. “So, Henry’s lack of friends was because of what then?”

“The curse. It was a function of Henry being the only one in the town to age. You know, if he had a best friend at four, in four years that best friend would still be four, and Henry would be eight. It doesn’t work. The curse dealt with most of these sorts of things by just fogging people’s minds, but in the case of Henry and the other children, it handled the problem by not allowing attachments to be formed. When I realized that, I stopped inviting children over, and eventually the other parents stopped inviting Henry over.”

“That does make it your fault,” Emma points out. “You cast the curse.” But she doesn’t put too much heat into it, because Henry wouldn’t even exist if not for the curse. 

“Yes,” Regina concedes. She picks up her story again. “For a long time, I was able to turn a blind eye to my son’s lack of friends because it didn’t bother him. But after he turned ten, that changed. Ten is an important age, and the curse lost a little of its hold on Henry then. So, he tried to make friends, and failed. It started making him sad, and I handled it very poorly. I told him that now that he was ten, it was time to put away childish things, and I turned stricter. All playtime became studytime, I stopped buying his comics, that sort of thing. That only made him sadder, of course, and so I sent him to Archie for therapy. Archie convinced me that I’d taken the wrong approach, and so I changed back. But by then it was too late - I know now that by that point, Ms. Blanchard had given Henry the book.”

“And he now knew you were the Evil Queen.”

“Yes. And it was easy for him to believe it, because of the way I’d changed. I don’t think he would have believed it so readily when he was five, or eight.”

Emma has a weird impulse to cheer Regina up, even though she did bring all of this on herself. “Well, that’s a kid for you. They get older and they think strict means evil.”

“I was wrong,” Regina says flatly. “Even before the part where I tried to convince him it was all in his head. Just - remember some of this. When he gets older, he won’t remember most of those ten years, and especially not without help.”

“Of course,” Emma says, and she’s surprised at how sincere she is. She searches inside herself for the reason, and understands.

She puts a hand on Regina’s shoulder, and Regina turns to look at her. “Regina, you made mistakes, big ones, in the last year. And you weren’t ever a perfect mother. But I know what it’s like to grow up with nobody looking out for me or caring. Henry didn’t experience that, because of you. A lot of what you were, and are, as a mother is what I wanted for my baby - you love him, unconditionally, and you’ll fight anyone or anything for him. You take it too far sometimes, but I’d rather have that than the reverse. And I don’t want Henry to lose you.”

Regina’s eyes shine with tears, and one slides down her cheek. Emma moves her thumb up to wipe it away, and then she cradles Regina’s cheek with her hand. She feels the warmth of Regina’s skin, and her eyes fall to Regina’s lips, and on an impulse she leans forward the few inches and presses her lips to Regina’s.

It’s a soft kiss, but Regina doesn’t fight it. Emma brings her other hand up to Regina’s neck and deepens the kiss. But when she slides her tongue inside Regina’s mouth and touches Regina’s own tongue, the shock of it sends both women backwards from each other. They stare at each other with wide eyes.

“Ms. Swan?” Regina asks, not sounding mad, just uncertain.

“Oh jeez. Um. I’m sorry. I was - trying to say thank you. For being the kind of mother I wanted for Henry.”

“With a kiss?” Regina says with a smirk. “You have a high opinion of your skill as a kisser.”

That flusters Emma more. “Yeah, I was trying to be friendly. Make a gesture. It took a wrong turn, obviously.” She gets up off the bed and picks up the sword. “Because I’m an idiot. You know that’s genetic.” She screams at herself to stop babbling.

Regina lets her off the hook. “It’s been a strange night, and a very strange trip. And we all have had far too little sleep. Let’s call it a night, and get our rest for tomorrow.”

Emma is immensely relieved that Regina isn’t mocking her. “So we can just forget this ever happened.”

“Yes. It’s fine. Go to sleep.”

Emma doesn’t think that’s even possible, but once she gets into her hammock in the crew’s quarters, the exhaustion overwhelms her. As she runs through the woods the next day, she’s extraordinarily grateful for every last second of the sleep she’d gotten.

It’s all gone as planned so far. They knew that sneaking into Neverland would be impossible, as Peter Pan would surely have spotted the Jolly Roger around the same time they first sighted the island. But he chose to allow the Jolly Roger to anchor offshore without difficulty, and Hook stayed onboard while the other five climbed into the boat and rowed to shore. The invasion team of Regina, Emma, David and Mary Margaret disembarked, while Gold took off in the boat. He was to row it along the shore until he sensed that he was near Tinkerbell, and Emma really hopes he’s found her location by now. They expect that Peter Pan won’t keep everyone together - Tinkerbell will be in one spot, and Peter Pan will stay back with the Lost Boys in the village near the center of the island, while his main forces rush forward to attack. Tinkerbell will most likely be positioned on the exact opposite side of the island from the Jolly Roger.

They know for certain they’re right about one thing, since they were attacked by the warriors and crocodiles that Regina had predicted as soon as they entered the jungle. And they stick to their strategy, which is that only David and Mary Margaret actually engage, while Regina and Emma stay low and look to break away when the Charmings can create a suitable opening. They find the gap and go. Emma glances back once at her parents, and sees them desperately making as much havoc as possible as a distraction. Part of her is impressed at how they really are such an amazing fighting team, as Regina had told her, but another part of her is terrified because her parents are just two people against so many. She uses that terror to make herself run faster. The black sky over her and the gloom all around helps.

She and Regina make it to the village. Emma has her sword on her back, and her gun out in her hand and ready, with extra ammunition slung around her hips. Regina chose to go unarmed, because the Jolly Roger didn’t have many weapons to begin with and Hook, David and Mary Margaret needed them more. Weapons weren’t going to do her any good against Peter Pan, and if she can’t use her magic to protect herself, it’s all for naught anyway.

Peter Pan isn’t bothering to hide, which is something that Regina had actually hoped for, because it indicates that he’s not concerned about her. Emma hadn’t understood the logic until Regina explained that it meant that Peter Pan might toy with her for a while, rather than looking to destroy her immediately. That freaks Emma out in a different way, but since they need as much time as they can get, she tries to find this as reassuring as she can.

Regina survives the initial attack, a gust of wind that isn’t particularly strong, by deflecting it with a wave of both hands. Emma knows Regina could have used just one hand for that, but she wants Peter Pan to think she’s even weaker than she actually is. So, the plan is working. (But deep down, Emma still wishes Peter Pan found Regina scary, the Evil Queen instead of a mouse. She hates not coming with strength.)

She has her own job to do, and she looks around for Lost Boys. She knows from Regina that Peter Pan needs them to be close by so that he can draw on their magic. She runs down one path, then another. She loses sight of Regina and Peter Pan for a time, but when she returns to the center, she sees the level of magic being used has kicked up several notches. Regina is sweating now, and Emma’s not sure if she’s genuinely taxed or still pretending. And, if she’s really having a hard time, how long will she be able to keep emotion from bubbling up?

Emma looks around, and she’s in such a panic now that it’s nothing but a relief to her to see the dirty, scowling Lost Boy who suddenly looms up in her path, just a few feet away. She aims without hesitation and pulls the trigger, just as quickly as she’d promised Regina. But not so quickly that Regina doesn’t have a chance to scream, “NO!” Emma’s hand jerks and the bullet hits the Lost Boy in his right shoulder rather than in the heart. 

It’s Henry.

Emma whips around to Regina. Regina has horror all over her face, and Peter Pan shoots an energy bolt at her. Regina sees it and tries to deflect, but the spell goes wrong - a flock of dead birds falls to the ground - and the bolt knocks Regina off her feet.

Regina pulls herself up and clenches her hands. With a tremendous effort, she slams all her emotion down and hits Peter Pan with the strongest spell she can manage without emotion. And luckily, that happens to be maybe five orders of magnitude stronger than anything she’d previously shown him, and he’s caught off guard. Vines sprout from the ground and ensnarl him, and he’s actually going to have to take a little time to free himself. Regina hopes it’s long enough for her to heal her son.

She runs to where Emma is cradling Henry, and she sees to her renewed horror that Emma is trying to use her own magic, even though emotion is written all over her face. There’s an explosion and Emma goes flying backwards.

Regina gathers Henry into her arms, and points a warning finger at Emma. “Don’t try that again. Watch Peter Pan.”

Emma nods and goes to stand in between Regina and the struggling Peter Pan. She tries to stab him with her sword, but the blade just turns aside. He is not near weak enough. She looks around and can see Lost Boys encircling the center now, mostly up in the trees. They’re all dirty and menacing-looking, and extremely wary. Something about the way their bodies move unnerves her, and after a second she’s able to put her finger on it. It’s like they’re in an exhausted thralldom. Which fits with the whole Peter-Pan-draining-them thing. But she doesn’t have a clear shot at any of them from where she is, and she cannot bring herself to leave Regina’s back unprotected while she tries to heal their son.

Regina struggles to wipe away her emotion, but it’s impossible. He’s her _son_ , shot, bleeding.

She’s a gardener at home, cutting and pruning, and maybe she can do that here. If she can’t be emotionless, maybe she can concentrate on just one emotion, and eliminate the others. Her heart won’t be clear, but there could be a certain purity that might be strong enough to resist corruption by the taint in Neverland’s magic.

The one emotion she absolutely isn’t going to be able to block, she self-diagnoses, is her love for her son, so that’s the one she needs to concentrate on. The very first story she told Emma the night before comes to mind, of the first time she held her son in her arms, and that’s good. But then the last story she told Emma comes to mind, of her poor choices in dealing with a ten-year-old Henry, and she feels the other emotions stop receding and gain in strength again - fear, hopelessness. She looks helplessly at Henry, and he looks back at her, scared out of his mind.

That sight isn’t helping. She closes her eyes and concentrates. Only the good, only the good. She stays in the early years. Holding Henry as a baby. The first time he visibly recognized her. His first step. “Ma-ma.” Laughing as she pushes him on the swing. Ice cream in the park, storybooks at night, gross scatological jokes that had secretly amused her. Hide and seek, staying behind the curtains of her office while Henry searched.

She feels the healing magic come up in her hands, and there’s no taint - no taint. She doesn’t need to open her eyes to know that Henry’s wound is gone. And she keeps her eyes closed because she feels she’s on the verge of something huge.

Emma is looking between Peter Pan and Regina and Henry like her head is on a permanent swivel stick. Peter Pan had been _this close_ to setting himself free, and then his body had suddenly jerked as he screamed. Emma crosses her fingers that it means that Gold has just killed Tinkerbell, and tries again to stab him with the sword. And this time the sword does slide through. Not far enough, not enough to kill him even temporarily, but enough to hurt him and slow him down. In the distance, there’s shouting, and David and Mary Margaret burst into the village.

“It’s taking too long,” David gasps. “We had to make a break for it.”

“What’s going on?” Mary Margaret asks, as she tries to make sense of the scene in front of her.

“I shot Henry, but Regina healed him.”

“What’s she doing now?” David asks.

“I don’t know. _Something_.” The three of them stare at Regina.

Regina is so deep into her concentration that she hears nothing of the commotion around her. She can still feel Henry in her arms, but it’s like he’s only half his real weight. And this helps her as she focuses on dwelling in a specific range of memories.

She’s figured out the magic of Neverland. It should have been obvious, really, given what the island is, although the taint had confused the issue. It’s a child’s magic, light and mischievous and sparkling. Cast a spell in the wrong mindset - too adult, essentially - and there’ll be an amusing backfire of some sort. Only the taint had turned those backfires nasty.

Her healing spell had started working when she thought of her son at play, and that’s the right direction. But the power had really kicked in when she thought of herself getting caught up in the hide-and-seek game, and that’s what she has to immerse herself in now: Every time in her life she felt childishly happy, whether as an adult or as a child herself.

It’s mostly times with Henry, of course. She hadn’t lied to Emma; she’d always liked children, even if she didn’t always let on. And maybe that was because she’d had very few times in her own childhood where she was able to just be a child. That’s too dark, too adult - she pulls herself firmly away from that, stops thinking, and sinks into her memories.

Making Henry laugh by lifting him into the air. Her own father making her laugh in the same way. The pillow fight she and Henry once had. Daniel stuffing hay down her bodice and tickling her.

Her magic gets stronger still at the memory of him, and she feels it pushing up against the taint. Purity. Purity. Uncomplicated emotions. No, uncomplicated _love_. The only two people in her life she feels uncomplicated love for are her son, and Daniel. She opens the faucets in her heart and lets her two loves stream through her. At first memories flow through her mind too - hugging Henry, racing horses with Daniel - and then those resolve into just their faces from some time in the past. Henry grinning impishly, Daniel smiling crookedly. And then those images go too, and she has no sense of herself anymore apart from them, or from her love for them. She _is_ her love for them.

At that instant, she releases outward.

Emma, Mary Margaret and David gape as clouds of purple smoke emanate from Regina in waves. They, and everything and everyone around them, are engulfed. Then they see what happens as the smoke passes, and turn slack-jawed with wonder.

The eternal night is gone. All the gloom has been blown away. Peter Pan’s conjured warriors and crocodiles are dust. Sunlight streams down, and the Lost Boys turn their faces up, clean and rejuvenated...and, Emma realizes, no longer being drained for their magic.

It’s the most anticlimactic killing of a Big Bad ever when Emma steps up to Peter Pan and stabs him in the heart with her sword. Regina had been right again: Killing Peter Pan was the easy part.

She turns back to Regina and sees she’s finally opened her eyes. They glow purple, and her whole body glows as well with a lavender shine. Despite her position sitting in the dirt, she has never looked more regal. Henry is by her side, staring with complete awe.

“I almost feel like we should drop to our knees,” David mutters.

“Forget that,” Emma says, although she knows exactly what he means.

But the Lost Boys have drawn around Regina and Henry, and they _are_ kneeling. This seems to break Regina from her spell.

“No. No. You are free now, and you will never be a slave to anyone again.”

They rise, but the worship remains on their faces, because she could have chosen to be their new mistress and did not.

Regina slowly gets to her own feet, and feels the last of her magic dissipate from her. She’s nearly as stunned as everyone else as she looks around at her handiwork. This is the greatest magic she has ever worked. And she is utterly exhausted. She falters, and David steadies her with a grasp on her elbow.

“Can you walk?”

She nods, and Henry pipes up, “Lean on me, Mom.” She smiles down at him, and at first is about to refuse, but she sees it’s important to him. So she puts a hand on his shoulder, and just enough weight to let him feel that he is helping. Although she can only move slowly, she and Henry wind up leading everyone, including the Lost Boys, on the way back to the beach. Emma can’t help noticing that Henry is so spellbound by his mother that he’s barely registered the rest of them. But when they reach the beach, and begin signaling to Hook to bring the ship in closer and take a boat to shore himself, Henry does step away from Regina then to hug the rest of his family. And Emma feels overwhelmed with relief as she finally holds her son in her arms again.

Regina uses the moment to look around her, and try to feel human again, because she is absolutely hollowed out. She sees a figure emerging from the nearby woods. A familiar figure, and for a moment she can only stare. And then she’s moving towards him as fast as she can manage.

David recognizes the figure too, and calls out her name in a warning tone, but Regina ignores him. Mary Margaret hasn’t gotten a good look yet, but she snorts at her husband. “I think she can take care of herself. You _saw_ what she did-” and then stops in shock. Emma looks at her questioningly.

Snow stutters, “D-daniel.”

“Who the hell is Daniel?”

Regina stops in front of the man. “Daniel?”

“Regina.”

Oh, it’s that same face she knows so well, and he seems in full control of himself. But she hesitates. She’s already worked one miracle today, and to think the universe would grant her a second - well, she’s never been that lucky in her life. “Daniel? What’s the last thing you remember?”

He frowns in concentration. “I remember telling you, ‘Love again.’”

She gasps.

“Then there was nothingness. For a time. I don’t know how long. But then I felt a pull - you were _calling_ me, and I came together, and I came.”

“The magic. I thought of you so much during it.” Regina steps forward and places a disbelieving hand on his chest. “I disintegrated you last time.” For a second, she thinks she can’t feel anything, and then she does. A _heartbeat_. She pulled him together, and the right way, not the way Whale did it. The tears start up in her eyes.

Daniel puts his own hands over hers. “Have you - loved again?”

Regina smiles, blinking through her tears. “No. I could never. It’s always been you and only you.”

He smiles back, and she hugs him. His arms go around her, and it’s incredible to feel them again for the first time in nearly forty years. His body is strong and hard, and she laughs incredulously. It is as if her cup is flowing over, and _never_ in her life has she ever had that feeling.

She pulls back to look at him again, and kisses him. It increases rather than lessens her utter disbelief, and so she clings to him and keeps kissing him until finally the reality starts to sink in. Daniel is here with her.

Mary Margaret tells Emma, completely unnecessarily at this point since everybody has been avidly watching the scene taking place a little ways from them, “Daniel is the man Regina loves.”

“Her true love,” comes a voice on Emma’s other side, and she jumps.

“Gold! Jeez!”

He gazes at the embracing lovers. “What incredible magic Neverland has. Do you know, with this resurrection, I think this love story might top that of Snow White and her Prince Charming. What do you think, Snow? After all, you had such a hand in it.”

Mary Margaret ignores him, but Henry pipes up, “It’s great. Mom deserves her happy ending.”

Henry’s 180 on Regina is kind of making Emma dizzy, and she changes the subject. “You got rid of Tinkerbell just when we needed it. What did you do anyway, pluck her wings and then stick her in a blender?”

“Does this island look like it has blenders readily available?” He bares his teeth suddenly. “I took care of her.”

“Right,” Emma says, feeling a chill. She definitely doesn’t want to know.

Hook arrives then in a rowboat, and the ensuing commotion finally gets Regina and Daniel to stop kissing. While David explains to Hook everything that’s happened, and Mary Margaret starts trying to gather the Lost Boys together into a group, Emma watches as Regina calls Henry over to meet Daniel. The introduction seems to go well, and Regina wraps one arm around Daniel and one arm around Henry. And as Emma looks at the trio, she knows everything has changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally I can start on the REAL story. I had no idea when I started this that these two chapters, which are really prologue, would end up being 10,000 words. (But the real story will certainly be longer than the prologue.)


	4. Reflections and Returns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I'm afraid real life got in the way of writing. Parents in town, and for some crazy reason my employer thinks I should do my work. But I'll be trying hard to stay on my update-weekly schedule for both fics from now on. The next chapter of "The Seamstress" should follow early this week.

They don’t head back to Storybrooke immediately. The Jolly Roger had been damaged during the fighting, although Hook himself had escaped serious injury. He makes a grand swashbuckling tale out of his heroics against so many (quietly admitting only to Regina that her spell came just in time to save him, as his honor as a pirate did compel him to thank her). Regina is all magicked out, and absolutely unwilling to draw on the Lost Boys’ magic or even Emma’s after the _things_ she felt when she sent out her power to break Peter Pan’s hold over the Lost Boys and Neverland. She refuses to speak directly about her experience (a refusal that lasts to the end of her days), but her obvious repulsion impresses everyone else, except Gold, enough that they don’t argue. Gold still has plenty of his own magic and could easily fix the ship, but being Gold, he asks for something in exchange, and nobody wants to make a deal with him for something that can be done manually. Emma points out that given the way Neverland time runs so much slower than elsewhere, Henry probably won’t even have missed a day of school.

One of the Lost Boys, it turns out, has the power to create portals. It’s a fact that shames him deeply, because Peter Pan had used it to kidnap so many other boys from many different worlds, and he’s eager to volunteer his ability for good. The group has no problem with that, since they need a way back to Storybrooke and the other Lost Boys should be returned to their homes if possible, but they don’t want to just leave Hook behind on his own after all his help and bravery. So Hook busies himself with making the needed repairs to the Jolly Roger the old-fashioned way. The others offer to help, but he turns out to be too protective of his ship to allow anyone else to work on it.

The others are mostly idle as a result, but glad for it because their bodies need the rest. Even though Neverland is beautiful now that Regina cleansed the taint from it, they still mostly prefer to hang out on the deck of the Jolly Roger, feeling that they’ve had quite enough of the island. Emma spends a lot of her time watching Henry with Regina. He’s spending nearly all his time with his adoptive mother, and even though he’s nice as ever to Emma on the rare occasions he’s away from Regina, Emma’s still concerned. She knows it’s probably his admiration for the magic Regina worked in Neverland - and to be fair, it _was_ pretty fucking impressive - but she fears it’s not the only reason, and she needs to speak to Regina about it.

That’s easier said than done, because quintessential loner Regina is never alone now. Daniel is apparently glued to her left side, and Henry is almost always on her right, and Emma feels awkward about approaching them. So she does the marginally less awkward thing and waits for Regina to have to visit the ship’s head, and pounces on her when she emerges.

“I’m worried about Henry,” she admits to Regina. “We haven’t talked about what happened on the island, but...I _shot_ him.”

She’s surprised to see nothing but sympathy in Regina’s eyes. “Ms. Swan- Emma-” Emma’s eyebrows go up at that rare use of her first name. “It’s very understandable. I emphasized to you so many times how important it was that you act quickly, that all of our blood would be on your hands if you didn’t. I don’t blame you.”

“Does Henry?” Regina begins to reply, but Emma interrupts. “Come on. His mother shot him. That has to have messed him up.”

“I’ve talked about it with Henry.” Of course she has, Emma thinks, because when Regina’s not being the Evil Queen she’s actually a decent mom. “It seems that, when I healed his physical trauma, I also healed whatever emotional and mental trauma he had from the incident.” 

Emma’s eyes widen. “Does that usually happen with a healing spell? That actually sounds a little freaky to me, like mind control or something.”

Regina sighs. “I don’t disagree. And no, that doesn’t ordinarily happen with a healing spell, at least not with the magic I know. It must have been an effect of Neverland’s magic. It’s really the magic of childhood, a good, innocent childhood, and that’s what I tapped into to heal Henry.”

“Does Henry understand that that’s what happened?”

“I don’t think he has the same level of understanding that an adult would. But what are we supposed to do? I can’t take that part of the healing back, and you’re not going to shoot him again just so he can be traumatized.”

Emma still doesn’t like it, but she can see Regina’s conflicted as well. In the end, though, Regina is right. It’s done. Of course, the fact Henry isn’t upset with her for shooting him has other implications-

“Regina?”

Both women look and see Daniel descending the stairs. He comes to Regina and puts an arm around her waist, and Emma does her best not to roll her eyes at his not being able to be away from Regina for more than five minutes at a time. He looks questioningly at Emma, and Regina seems to realize that they’ve never actually spoken to each other, so she makes formal introductions.

“Emma, this is Daniel, my fiancé from my homeland. Daniel, this is Emma, Henry’s birth mother.”

“His _birth_ m-”

“I adopted Henry when he was a baby.” Regina hesitates. “Emma is also Snow White’s daughter.”

“How is that possible?”

“It’s a long, complicated story. I’ll explain later.”

Emma looks at Daniel, and wonders just how much explaining Regina is going to have to do, and how _that’s_ going to go. Daniel seems nice, if clingy. Hardly a match for Regina. It’s none of her business, though, so she takes her leave of the pair.

Emma’s not the only one on the ship who can’t help watching Regina, Daniel and Henry together. Mary Margaret also has trouble keeping her eyes elsewhere, and Regina borrows a page from Emma’s book and confronts her in front of the ship’s head.

“Stop staring at me and Daniel.”

“I’m sorry,” Mary Margaret says, flustered. “It’s just, I get flashes when I look at you-”

“So do we. _Unpleasant_ flashes.”

“He knows, then.”

“I haven’t told him anything yet. But he’s smarter than I was back then. He’s guessed that what happened had something to do with your eavesdropping on us, and it bothers him to see you watching us now. So keep your eyeballs to yourself, before I have to rip them out of your head.”

Mary Margaret nods briefly, and Regina storms away.

Later, Emma is in what she thinks of as “her” spot for watching the sunset. It’s the place where she and Regina discussed the attack on Neverland, and not entirely coincidentally, she can also see Regina, Daniel and Henry out of the corner of her eye. But her mother joins her on that side, effectively blocking the view.

“I know why you keep watching them,” Mary Margaret says. “Because I’ve been watching for the same reason. You’re thinking, ‘That could have been my family.’”

Emma freezes at that, not sure what Mary Margaret is implying. Does she mean-

“You’re thinking about you and Neal and Henry,” Mary Margaret continues. “Regina has Daniel, but you’ve lost the man you love, when it could have been the two of you and your son sitting there now.”

“What about you? Are you thinking about you and Regina and your father?” Emma knows that Regina was married to her grandfather, and was her mother’s stepmother, but she really knows nothing else. The whole thing is so weird to her, she’s never asked for details.

“I was actually thinking more of me and Regina and _Daniel_. I barely knew him, but I know he was a very good man. Regina would not have loved him otherwise.”

“We’re talking about the same Regina, right?”

Snow smiles sadly. “Yes and no. She was such a good person back then, kind and loving and selfless. I met her when she risked her life to save me from my runaway horse, and I just–fell in love then and there. I loved her with all my heart. And I wanted her to be my mother. Which is how all the trouble started.”

“How?”

“Regina loved Daniel, but Cora agreed to engage her to my father, since he was the king. When Regina found out, she decided to run away with Daniel and marry him, but I saw them together. Regina swore me to secrecy, but Cora told me all about how she wanted nothing more than for her daughter to be happy, so I told Cora about Daniel. After that, Daniel was gone, and Regina married my father.” Snow turns and looks at Emma. “I didn’t find out for years that Cora had ripped Daniel’s heart out right in front of Regina.”

Emma gapes. They’re silent for a moment, and then Snow resumes. “I don’t only blame Cora. I know now that Regina was heartbroken even before the wedding, but I can’t help but think that things might have gone differently if only she had been married to another man.”

“What was wrong with your father?”

“He had no interest in marrying again. He was still in love with my mother, and he married Regina only to give me the mother I wanted. But you should have seen Regina on her wedding day - I’ve still never known a more beautiful bride. And all the guests talked about how my father was lucky to be king, because her mother would never have married her to him otherwise. Someone with Regina’s beauty was only ever meant for a king.” Snow can’t help but add with a trace of the princess she’d been, “It was foolish for her to fall in love with a stable boy, and for him to think he could ever marry her.”

“Wait, Regina was in love with a _stable boy_?”

“I told you, she was completely different back then. She was no snob, and she cared nothing for money. Or for being queen. If you want to know what she was like, well, I modeled myself after her. And so many men loved her - the lords at our court, the ambassadors who visited, and eventually the genie who was the downfall of my father. Some women, too. Not only was Regina so very beautiful, in public she was an excellent queen, a real asset to my father the king. But despite all that, he simply didn’t love her. He never saw her as anything other than the mother he’d procured for me or the one who carried out the official duties of the queen. Beyond that, he paid no attention to her. And that’s why, growing up, I was always on her side.”

“Because the man who wanted her was killed so she could marry a man who didn’t.”

“I didn’t know that then, remember. Though certainly a lot of Regina’s rage makes sense in that context. But no, it was just frustration on my part. I loved her so much, I assumed my father would too, and I just couldn’t understand how he didn’t. It was the first thing that went wrong with my fantasy.”

“And the second?”

Snow’s hands tightened on the rail. “Regina was not my mother. Oh, she was my _stepmother_ , she behaved perfectly right up to the point she tried to have me killed once I was grown. But when I was a girl, she wasn’t abusive, or neglectful. And to be perfectly honest, she’s the one who made sure I didn’t turn out a complete spoiled brat - if it’d all been left up to my father, I would have been unbearable. She set reasonable rules, boundaries, and although my father certainly never enforced them, I followed them because I wanted to make her happy. I wanted to make her love me, because I knew she didn’t.”

“That is kind of abusive,” Emma points out. Still, compared to her experiences in the foster care system, she’s not that worked up about it.

Snow stares moodily out at the ocean. “I told myself that it was because I wasn’t her biological daughter. So it wasn’t my fault. But then you broke the curse and restored my memories, and there was Henry.” Snow risks a single brief glance over at Regina and Henry. “That’s why I never really wanted to acknowledge how Regina feels about Henry. But it’s undeniable, isn’t it? Henry isn’t her biological son. He’s my grandson and Leopold’s great-grandson. But none of that matters to Regina. She adores him. She loves him the way I wanted her to love me. I’m actually jealous of my grandson. Isn’t that sad?”

“Feelings are strange sometimes.”

“And it was all because I told Cora about Daniel. Regina _was_ genuinely fond of me at first. If she had been able to elope with Daniel, they could have come back once things settled down and I would always have been welcome in their home. Maybe it would even have been my second home.”

“Isn’t that kind of pie-in-the-sky? We’re talking about Cora. She would’ve gone after Regina and Daniel once she found out they were missing. And your father may not have cared about marrying Regina, but he probably would’ve minded a public jilting. You can’t just get away with not marrying the king, can you?”

“You’re not wrong. The adult in me knows it. But the child in me is still there, and it’s her, that child, who can’t help thinking that Regina and Daniel and I could have been a family.”

“It’s kind of like me being mad at you about putting me in the magical tree trunk, isn’t it? Because sure, I say that at least we would’ve been together if you hadn’t done that, but it was a curse. One mostly aimed at you. You and David weren’t together for all that time, so the curse wouldn’t have put me with you, either. I probably would’ve ended up in the orphanage or the convent or - gods, Regina’s house. The adult in me knows that-”

“But the child can’t help but feel differently,” Snow finishes.

Emma reaches out and puts a hand on her mother’s shoulder.

The next day, Hook finally deigns to ask David and Daniel for help, for tasks that require more than one set of hands. Emma’s offended at his sexism, but she doesn’t call him out on it because it’s an opportunity for her to spend some real time with Henry, who is still constantly with Regina. For some reason, she doesn’t feel uncomfortable joining them when it’s just Regina and Henry. Henry’s happy when she sits down with them, and Regina is more pleasant than she’s ever been. Happiness radiates from her, and Emma has to admit it suits Regina.

Many of the Found Boys (as Henry has dubbed them) also hang around Regina often, and that’s no different today. Emma has seen that the Found Boys love Regina - they work to make her laugh with their antics, and they bring her food or anything else they can think of for small gifts. This morning, Emma and Henry listen as Regina tells the younger ones stories from memory that she used to read to Henry. Mary Margaret eventually calls the boys away for their breakfast, but Emma notices that one of them doesn’t go far and makes sure he stays within Regina’s sight.

“Looks like he’s really attached to you.”

Regina looks troubled, and squeezes Henry’s shoulders. “Charles is the boy I told you about, the one Gold traded to Peter Pan. As you might expect, he doesn’t particularly like being on a ship with the man. So he stays close to me.”

“I didn’t even think about that.” Emma tries to bring the conversation back to less heavy ground. “Still, they all really like you.”

Regina stands up, ready to join the others for breakfast. “Yes, quite the refreshing change.” Emma notices that behind Regina, Henry suddenly gets a troubled look on his face. But when Regina begins to turn to him, he quickly drops it.

The repairs are finished by nightfall, but the group agrees that it’d be better to wait for the morning before opening a portal. They use the time to work on the information they’ve gathered from the Found Boys about their origins.

Five of the thirty-seven boys are from the Enchanted Forest, including Charles and Timothy, the first one to be taken by Peter Pan. More than five boys had been taken, but only the ones who actually had magic have survived. Charles’s parents are dead, killed by Gold when he took their son. But for the other boys, their parents are not much older than they were when their sons went missing, due to the curse. Regina is aware of their Storybrooke counterparts, because they all came to the castle to report the disappearances of their sons.

Hook plays it off as desire for adventure, but the others know his offer to take the rest of the Found Boys to their worlds and try to reunite them with their families is coming from a sincere place within him. And he’s willing to look after those boys who turn out not to have a place to go. The boy who can open portals, Erahu, wants to travel with Hook and help. So that’s settled.

The next morning, Erahu opens a portal to Storybrooke, and the Jolly Roger sails into it. Emma is standing with her parents, and for once, she has her arm around Henry. Regina and Daniel are further down the deck, and when Emma glances that way, she sees Regina’s face is less than enthusiastic. But still, they’re going home. Finally.

When the Jolly Roger docks in Storybrooke and everyone disembarks, some attention is attracted by the spectacle. Regina scans the curious onlookers and notices one man in particular - a father whose son Jory went missing after she had become the Evil Queen. Immediately, she calls Jory to her and begins to walk him towards his father. Carl focuses on them when they are twenty feet or so away and is riveted at the sight of his son, who doesn’t look a day older than when he disappeared. And then he sees whose company his son is in.

“Get away from him!” He charges at Regina and pulls Jory away. Regina holds up a pacifying hand, but Daniel steps to her side, confused and concerned. Emma and Henry join Regina on her other side, and Mary Margaret and David quietly bring up the rear.

But Jory quickly tells his father that Regina saved him and brought him back, and this gives Carl pause. He looks at Regina and says, “I don’t know what to say. I-” and stops, clearly still at a loss.

“You can say ‘Thank you,’” Daniel says. “That would be appropriate. Regina saved all of these boys.”

He’s still confused, but irate, and Regina quietly puts a hand on his arm and pulls him away. His presence is so rock-solid, and she doesn’t want that to change just yet.

The other three boys who have parents in Storybrooke have joined Jory. David steps up and starts asking Carl or anyone else to call the parents they know so that they can come get their sons, and this gets the attention of all the onlookers. Four returned boys, a true miracle.

Regina is able to fade to the back, where she starts saying goodbye to the rest of the Found Boys. One of the oldest boys has Hook bring forth a set of mirrors, and he explains that they’ve been enchanted so that the bearer of one can always talk to the bearer of the other. Regina is touched, and the younger Found Boys in particular look somewhat reassured. Daniel holds Regina’s mirror for her while she spends a moment with each of the boys. Each walks back onto the Jolly Roger afterwards, where Hook stands. Finally the only boy who remains is Charles, and as Regina talks with him, Emma notices that Henry is watching them narrowly. Regina hugs Charles, and Henry bursts forward and says, “You better get going. Hook’s waiting.”

“Henry!” Regina shoots him a look and then tries to smooth the rudeness over with Charles with another hug. Charles walks away after, and Henry breathes a visible sigh of relief. Hook undocks the Jolly Roger then, and many goodbyes are waved between shore and land. Then Erahu opens a portal, and the Jolly Roger vanishes into it.

Regina turns and bends down to Henry. “What was that?”

Henry fidgets, and Regina says sharply, “Henry.”

The words burst out of Henry like machine gun fire. “Did you want to adopt one of them?”

“What?”

“Charles’s parents are dead. You could’ve adopted him.”

“I doubt he wants to be in the same town as Gold.”

“One of the other boys, then. Lots of them don’t have parents anymore.”

“Henry, where is this coming from?”

“They all love you,” Henry muttered. “You said that was a refreshing change.”

Realization sets in for Regina. “Henry, I wasn’t talking about you. I only meant in general. I’m not very popular with anyone, as you know.”

“Yeah, but, I haven’t been nice either.” Henry stares at his shoes. “If you want another son-”

Regina puts her hand under Henry’s chin and forces him to look at her. “I like the Found Boys. But _you_ are my son, and you always will be. The spell in Neverland I cast that you’re so impressed with? I thought of you during it. That magic that was powerful enough to cleanse the taint from Neverland - that’s how much I love you.”

Henry throws himself into her body. “I love you too.” He looks up at her. “Can I come home?”

Tears spring instantly to Regina’s eyes. “Of course.” She hugs him again.

A few feet away, Emma swallows. But she’s not surprised. Not really.

Henry turns to her then with a smile, and Emma smiles back. “I’ll see you later,” he says casually. He turns away again, and Emma’s smile falls. For the first time, she understands how Regina has felt for months.

She looks up and her eyes meet Regina’s. Regina frowns and steps away from Henry and Daniel, towards her. “Come to my house tomorrow at 11. We’ll have brunch, you can see him, and we’ll set up a visitation schedule.”

“Is that pity talking?”

Regina rolls her eyes. “He’s a boy. For the moment I’m the favorite, because I did ‘cool’ magic. I’m sure as soon as I make him eat his vegetables and do his homework, that’ll change. But he needs stability. He needs a schedule. It’s as much for me as it is you. No more of his whims - he sees both of us as his mothers now, so that’s how it’s going to be.”

Regina turns then and walks away with Henry and Daniel, and Emma watches them go. But her parents are also watching, with outraged expressions. Mary Margaret says, “Of course it’s for her. She means for Henry to always live with her, and for you to always have nothing more than visitation.”

Emma sighs. Regina’s words on the ship ring in her ears. “It _is_ up to her. She’s his legal mother. Henry was only living with me because he wanted to and Regina went along with it. You heard him just now, he wants to live with her again.”

“He could change his mind again in a week. Regina acknowledged that herself.”

“Yeah...no. Regina’s wrong. This is different. It changed for Henry down in the mines. I thought maybe it was just an isolated moment, but it’s really not.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Remember, he went to her. He thought all of us were about to die, and he went to her.”

“Well, she was standing there all alone. He felt sorry for her, especially since she’d tried to save us.”

“I don’t think so. He’s a good kid, but he’s a kid. He’s thoughtless the way kids are thoughtless. Like just now with me, or with Regina for months. He went to her because when it really came down to it, he chose her. Neverland just kind of capped that off. Regina gave him what he wanted.”

“You mean now he can love her?” David asks.

“More, he’s always loved her, but now he feels it’s okay for him to love her. He doesn’t have to feel guilty about it anymore.”


	5. Reality

The day after the return to Storybrooke, Emma arrives at Regina’s house shortly after 11. Henry answers the door, and hugs her, which makes her feel a lot better. Regina, of course, gives her a little grief for being late. Daniel is nowhere in sight, and Regina explains that he’s resting, as this modern world is rather overwhelming for him. Emma wonders if that’s the only reason, or if Regina also wants to keep Daniel and Emma separated.

She doesn’t press Regina on the point, though, and they sit down to the brunch of fluffy waffles and freshly-cut apples that Regina’s prepared. Emma puts a ton of butter and syrup on her waffles and ignores the rest, but Henry dutifully eats his apples, and even seems to enjoy them. For Emma’s part, she does find the waffles delicious after the week of ship food.

Henry goes to play a videogame after, and although he invites Emma, Regina tells him that she and Emma need to talk. So Henry goes into the living room while Regina and Emma stay in the dining room and drink coffee, and begin discussing visitation.

Regina’s proposal is Wednesday afternoons after school, Friday night sleepovers, and Sundays. Emma asks about when she needs to have Henry back on Saturday mornings.

“10. And on Sundays let’s say that you’ll have him from 10 to 5. So?”

Emma’s instinct is to push for more, just because in negotiations, the rule is that the original offer is just a starting point. But, assessing the deal…this lets her have real time with Henry four days out of seven. She has almost half of the weekend, and two of the five afternoons after school.

“Ms. Swan?” Regina asks, and an edge has entered her voice. That snaps Emma out of her thoughts, and she decides to agree. She can’t really find anything unfair about the proposal. It’s not equal time, but equal time isn’t going to happen when Henry is living with only one of them. And she is conscious that Regina doesn't have to give her anything. Not that she would let Regina keep her away from Henry, or that Henry would go along with that even though she’s not currently the numero uno mother, but Regina’s offer is surprisingly generous for her.

But on general “not being a pushover” principle, Emma asks to take Henry to school on the three mornings that she won’t be seeing him afterwards. Since the drive from Regina’s to the school takes all of five minutes and therefore isn’t a significant concession, Regina agrees readily enough. They also agree that the visitation schedule will be effective the following day, Sunday. So Emma says goodbye to Henry and takes her leave, feeling good about the situation.

That good feeling dissipates fast during her first Sunday with Henry. From the beginning, when she pulls up to Regina’s house and Henry gets into her car, his mood seems off. She takes him to the playground, and then Granny’s for a late lunch. He does noticeably brighten upon being reunited with Granny and Ruby, and Granny makes him a special dessert in honor of his return to Storybrooke. (Even though in Storybrooke time, they had actually returned the very next day after their departure, so the town hadn’t even noticed their absence.)

But once they leave Granny’s, Henry returns to being twitchy. So Emma walks him around town so that he can see some of the other people he knows, like Archie and Belle. She does, however, avoid Gold’s pawnshop, remembering her promise to Regina. She and Regina hadn’t discussed it the day before, but Emma’s pretty sure that Regina surviving her battle with Peter Pan doesn’t mean that she’s changed her mind about not wanting Henry to have a relationship with Gold. And it’s not something Emma’s going to test on her first official day with Henry.

Emma takes her son back to her own place for the remainder of the afternoon, and does her best to entertain him. But she sees him checking his watch repeatedly, and it’s with a sense of defeat that she drives him back to Regina’s an hour earlier than she has to. He tells her goodbye before she’s even brought her car to a complete halt, and he’s out as soon as she’s stopped. She watches him run up to the door, and catches a glimpse of curtains moving in one of the windows. So as soon as he lets himself in, she drives off, depressed.

Henry pauses in the foyer of his house. He doesn’t see anyone, so he listens. There’s not a sound. Like Emma, he’d seen the flash of curtains, so he knows that Regina knows he is home. He begins walking through the house, and sees that the door to his mother’s office is closed. So he goes up to his room to retrieve a certain book, and brings it back down to the dining room. He flips through the pages quietly while he waits for her.

Regina emerges from her office ten minutes later, and sits down at the table with him. Her makeup is freshly, and flawlessly, applied, but Henry can still see that she has been crying.

She notices the book, and puts her chin on her hand. He says, “Daniel’s story isn’t in here.”

“No book can contain everything.”

“Is he still here?”

“Yes, he’s just in his room.”

“How did he take it?”

“I think it’s not real to him. The Evil Queen is just so different from the Regina he knows, and to have all that history dumped on him in one day…he can’t even process it yet. It’s like a story about someone else.”

“So you did tell him everything?” At Regina’s nod, Henry tells her, “I’m proud of you.”

Regina lets out a half-sob at that. “What a thing to be proud of.”

She puts her fingers at her temple, while Henry flips to the end of his book. “These are all tales from the Enchanted Forest. There’s nothing about Storybrooke or Neverland. The book ends too early.”

“Well, no story is over until everyone involved is dead. And sometimes not even then.”

“So maybe that’s the answer,” Henry says.

Regina takes his hand, and they sit for a moment in silence.

Later, when Henry is in the kitchen peeling potatoes for Regina while she makes dinner, she thinks to ask him how his day with Emma went.

“It was all right. But I just really wanted to be here.”

“Is that why you came back early?”

Henry nods, and Regina asks, “Does she know why?”

“I didn’t think you’d want me to tell her. I saw it on a TV show once, a kid with divorced parents causing trouble by telling them stuff about each other.”

Regina can’t help but smile at that. “Well, that’s mostly about the kinds of feelings that happen when a marriage ends. Which doesn’t apply to Emma and me. But that said, yes, in general you shouldn’t talk about what goes on in each of our homes to each other.”

Henry nods, and Regina continues. “But you could have told her that it wasn’t about her. You don’t need to go into details.” She hesitates. “I love that you are concerned about me. But it doesn’t have to be an either-or thing. You can think about both of us, and you should. The worst thing in the world is thinking that your son is upset with you.”

Henry nods, a bit abashed, and Regina adds in a lighter tone, “I’m sure it’ll happen enough times for real with Emma. So she doesn’t need to be thinking she screwed up when she didn’t.”

Daniel comes out of his room once dinner is ready, and the three of them have a somewhat awkward meal, with very little conversation. Awkward enough that Henry willingly heads to bed afterwards rather than beg to stay up late. Daniel also chooses to return to the guest room, so Regina cleans up after the meal alone. Then she retires to her office, shutting the door.

She pours herself a glass of cider. She’d prefer something stronger, like Scotch, but she knows better than to drink heavily when her newly-reconciled-to-her son and Daniel are both in the house.

She sits in her chair with her cider and considers the question of whether she should call Emma. It’s not that it is her most pressing concern, but she would rather think about that than Daniel.

On the whole, she’s leaning against. Really, why should she bother? Henry can sort it out himself the next morning when Emma picks him up for school. Regina’s already done her part by speaking to him. A few more hours isn’t going to kill Emma. Regina spent nearly a _year_ having her son despise her and blatantly prefer Emma, and she’s certain Emma never spoke to him about the way he treated Regina.

She’d also granted Emma regular visitation, something Emma had never granted her. And the woman had _shot_ their son, but Regina had not only excused her for that, she’d even taken the blame herself. Never mind that she’d been able to see the Lost Boy was Henry, even in the middle of a magical duel with a significantly more powerful opponent. (Deep down, she knows that isn’t fair. Emma doesn’t have the experience Regina has, either in war or with Henry. That’s what raising someone from birth for ten years does - she can sense, recognize Henry with even the most fractional of glimpses.)

She’s been the bigger person enough. There’s no reason for her to call tonight. Except…the Regina Daniel had known would call, she thinks uneasily. And that’s probably why she’d been generous with Emma about shooting Henry and about visitation. To cast the healing and cleansing spells in Neverland, she’d had to not just tap back into the girl she’d been, but really become her.

And after that, she’d gotten Henry’s adoration, and then Daniel coming back to her, and so she’d largely stayed in that mode, especially on the Jolly Roger. The thought of the ship makes her wistful - the last two days on it, with Daniel and Henry, had been the happiest of her life. A part of her wishes they had never left, that they were sailing now between all the worlds with Hook and the Found Boys. She could have remained filled with joy, and there would have been no need to tell Daniel anything.

But the main part of her knows that period on the Jolly Roger was something out of time. One always has to return to reality eventually. And even Regina, with her capacity for denial, knew that there was no way Daniel could simply be kept in ignorance of her past.

But in recounting the many things she’d done as the Evil Queen, she’d fallen away from the Regina she’d briefly reclaimed in Neverland. There, she’d concentrated on the good, pure, loving memories, but telling Daniel about her long history of evil was the opposite.

Having to tell him, of all people, had stripped away her rationalizations, her justifications for her actions. She’d been evil. She’d done evil. Snow White may have given her the title of Evil Queen, but Regina had earned it and more.

His face had been so confused, so uncomprehending. He’d finally told her that he had heard enough, but she’d had to insist on finishing, because whatever she didn’t tell him, someone else would. There was only one last thing, she’d promised, but she didn’t mention that it was the worst.

Graham.

She finishes her cider, and tries not to think about his stony tone when he’d said he needed some time alone.

She is sorry. And the remarkable thing is, she thinks she’s not only sorry that she was in a position where she had had no choice but to confess. Maybe a small part of the Jolly Roger Regina was still lingering. Or maybe she’d realized what she should have realized decades ago before she set out on the path of unending anger and vengeance, that not only would her actions be such a disappointment to Daniel (and Henry), but to herself as well.

Regina can’t bear to think about this anymore. Wearily, she turns her mind back to the easier subject of Emma. The Regina of so long ago would call, but that’s not her anymore. She knows how it feels not to be Henry’s favorite, but Emma’s dealt with that for a few days while Regina dealt with it for a lot longer. And Emma’s the fun mom, so it’ll flip back soon enough.

Of course, Regina could be a fun mom herself. She could let Henry eat all the sugar he wants, and not insist on his homework or his chores being done, and never tell him no.

But it’s one thing to live with Henry, and quite another to _raise_ him. And raising him well is the most important thing to her.

As it should be. At least she has one thing right, Regina thinks as she picks up her phone.

Emma answers quickly, and Regina tells her that she’s calling to explain about earlier.

“Henry is going to talk to you about this too, but not in specifics. He was distracted because he was worried about me.”

“Why?”

Regina sighs. “He knew that while he was out with you, I was telling Daniel about my past as the Evil Queen.”

“Wow. How did that go?”

“I’d rather not talk about it. But I’m sorry that it affected your time with Henry negatively.”

“Well, you had to tell Daniel at some point. I appreciate your calling to let me know.” Emma hesitates. “Is he leaving?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s a good thing, right?”

“I’m not sure that it’s not that he just doesn’t have anywhere else to go,” Regina admits. “I don’t know how he can reconcile what he learned with the Regina he knows.”

Emma thinks for a minute. Uncharacteristically, Regina simply waits rather than getting impatient. Finally Emma says, “The spells you cast in Neverland - you used love, didn’t you?”

“Yes. It’s strange, you know. I’ve never done that before. I always relied on anger. That’s what Rumplestiltskin trained me to use, and my mother often told me love is weakness.”

“Obviously she was wrong, because that was amazing magic. But look at the effect on Henry and the Found Boys - they’re all totally in awe of you. Heck, even David kind of wanted to kneel.”

“Is there a point to this?”

“We could all see the magic, but the boys really felt it, because you cast it on them - you healed Henry and freed them all from Peter Pan’s thrall. You did it using love. My point is, anyone who can do that isn’t evil. Daniel has to know that, because he would've felt it too when you resurrected him.”

Regina smiles then. “Thank you, Emma.” It’s strange, she’d called to set things right between Henry and his other mother, but Emma’s made her feel better in turn.


End file.
